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Verse Fluctuation Declaration is a V.F.D. code used by changing some of the words in a work of verse. The volunteer reading it will notice the mistakes and find the message. Versed Furtive Disclosure, a collection of poems found by Klaus in the Gorgonian Grotto, gives the following example of the code:

If a volunteer used the name of the poem "My Last Duchess," by Robert Browning in a coded communication, the title might instead be "My Last Wife," by the poet "Obert Browning" instead of Robert Browning. Filling in the mistakes would spell out "Duchess R."

This code was used later in The Grim Grotto, in a Volunteer Factual Dispatch sent to the Queequeg by Quigley Quagmire. He used Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter," and one stanza from T. S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Land". His message follows:

Coded Versions:
"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The walrus did beseech
"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the movie theater."
At the pink hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a pony throbbing party...
Actual Versions:
"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The walrus did beseech
"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach."
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting...
Message:
Briny Beach
violet taxi waiting

Josephine Anwhistle used a similar code in her false suicide note, with the difference being that the missing words could be inferred by knowledge of grammar rather than by knowledge of a pre-existing poem.

Sources[]

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